School of Hard Blocks

Butler Thrives on the Basketball Court by Fouling—Without Fouling

By

Ben Cohen

Feb. 28, 2013 7:33 p.m. ET

The story of Butler, the tiny Indiana school whose men's basketball team waltzed in glass slippers to the NCAA championship game in 2010 and again in 2011, is already one of the sport's classic fairy tales. Another carriage awaits this March: The Bulldogs have been ranked in the top 25 since mid-December.

But the twist here is that when you analyze the game tapes, Butler starts to look less like Cinderella and more like a gang of evil stepsisters—assuming those stepsisters had spent some time in the gym working out with the heavy bag.

The Butler Bulldogs are known as bullies. Butler's signature brand of defense—bumping cutters, fighting through screens and generally bruising their way around the court—is so physical that former players still get an earful from past victims. "People complained about it a little bit," said Utah Jazz forward Gordon Hayward, a Butler product.

How does Butler manage to sustain this style of play? Shelvin Mack, now in the NBA's Development League, explains it this way: "It's not like the ref is going to come down and call a foul every possession."

To be clear, this isn't some grand conspiracy hatched by Butler coach Brad Stevens from a hidden lair beneath Hinkle Fieldhouse. The last thing Stevens wants his players to do is send the other team to the free-throw line. "You have to play physical without fouling," he said, "and there's a fine line between the two."

As it turns out, Butler's vice is actually a virtue: The team has a well-deserved reputation for knowing how to foul without fouling.

In fact, few college teams have better defensive habits. Stevens preaches the tao of "getting low," which means Butler's guards defend with their chests and legs, not their hands. The result: referees are less likely to whistle them for fouls. Getting low also affords Butler's post players leverage in the paint. "The lower you are, in my opinion, the less it looks like you're fouling," said Ronald Nored, Butler's steals leader in 2010 and 2011.

The other thing Butler does so sneakily well on defense is even more basic. "They're as good as anybody in the country at getting into position," said ESPN analyst Dan Dakich. Stevens instructs his players to take their defensive spots early, hold them throughout the possession and always keep the ball in front of them. Instead of pressing for steals, Butler sets its half-court defense and prevents second-chance points by protecting the glass (Butler has ranked among the top 40 teams in defensive-rebounding percentage in each of the last five seasons, according to kenpom.com).

This year's Butler team, which plays Virginia Commonwealth Saturday in a rematch of the 2011 national semifinal, is an anomaly: a team that's better on offense than defense. But Stevens, who is 62-16 in February and beyond, said it takes until roughly this point in the season for his players to fully grasp his defense.

The Sports Retort

Often, Butler seems to benefit from the fact that referees tend to swallow their whistles in big games, like during its Dec. 15 upset of No. 1 Indiana. Butler also stakes an advantage in games by dictating the style of play. "The refs always favor the more aggressive team," said Willie Veasley, a Butler starter in 2010. "We were always more aggressive."

What makes Butler's roughhousing especially fascinating is that it reflects the current state of college basketball. ESPN analyst Jay Bilas, a loud critic of college officiating, said referees defer to defenses by permitting too much contact. Unlike the NBA, he said, players on offense have a hard time cutting because those cuts are often disrupted. As for Butler's style, he said, "I don't blame any coach or any player for doing that."

By now, Butler's defense is its hallmark. In 2000, when Stevens joined Butler's staff as a volunteer, players already were wearing T-shirts stamped with the motto "the toughest team sets the rules." Stevens said he borrowed another phrase, "the game honors toughness," from a fellow coach in Indiana. "You have to have a defensive mind-set when things aren't going your way," he said. "You can't just make that up on the fly. It has to be ingrained."

Butler also practices playing through contact with scrimmages that can be vicious, "almost like a slugfest," said Matt Howard, Butler's leading scorer and rebounder in 2011. In those intrasquads, coaches aren't exactly quick with their whistles. "There were times when they would tell the other team to foul, hold, scratch, claw—anything you can do to simulate what it'll be like in a game," said Pete Campbell, a Butler guard in 2007 and 2008.

This vigorous style isn't exclusive to Butler, but other teams find it hard to replicate. Brandon Crone, who played for Butler from 2003 to 2007, tried bringing its play-on approach to Division-II Nova Southeastern University when he was hired as an assistant coach. "You get five or six guys crying about a call," Crone said. "We never saw that at Butler."

Butler is still called for more than its fair share of fouls. Stevens's teams have averaged 18.2 per game since the 2008 season. Among the 10 coaches with the most NCAA tournament games in that time, Stevens has heard the most whistles. Nored said he found one big difference between Butler's two runs to the national-title game. The first year, he said, "there was a lot of fouling I knew how to get away with." The next time, he said, officials had caught on. "I was getting all kinds of foul calls for doing the same stuff."

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